profoundly divergent pathways vis-à-vis governance and development are possible’. In the course of navigating this question throughout Zimbabwe’s post-colonial political and developmental challenges, we have been acutely aware of Mkandawire’s caution in approaching this issue. The latter warns that international organisations of the good governance agenda have created a rather ‘voluntaristic and hubris-laden belief in their capacity to mould states with one template and with little consideration of structural constraints or local politics’.144 With this perspective in mind we have tracked several conjunctural moments of developmental opportunity between 1980-2019 that have also been constrained by structural limitations at different historical points. In the 1980s, the Lancaster House Agreement provided a chance for a former colonial power, in conjunction with other Western states, to provide the resources for substantive movement on a land reform programme. The opportunity was constrained by a combination of the strictures of the willing-buyer-willing-seller conditions set at the Lancaster House talks and the limited resources eventually provided by the Western powers because of early indications of political authoritarianism in the new government. In addition, Zanu-PF government showed little political will in pushing for a stronger land reform programme because of the interests of a small party elite that had begun to emerge in the commercial farming sector. These developments led to an accumulation of political pressures that would come to the fore from the late 1990s and explode on the political stage in the 2000s. In the 1990s the government was overenthusiastic in its embrace of economic liberalisation in the hope that it would grow the productive sector and assist in dealing with the increasing national debt. However, it very quickly became apparent that there was an inherent tension between the means (austerity) and the ends (prosperity), since austerity entailed cutting back on aggregate demand, which ultimately affected growth, employment, and poverty
levels. The growing negative impact of the structural adjustment programme led to largescale trade union strikes and the emergence of a national opposition movement that for the first time since independence, threatened the hold of Mugabe’s party on state power. The response of the ruling party to this widespread discontent and popular mobilisation by the opposition forces was twofold. Firstly, it deepened the reconstruction of the state and politics of the country in more authoritarian nationalist forms. In carrying out this process, Zanu-PF deployed a selective rendition of the liberation history and antiimperialist discourse that attempted to justify national political repression.145 Secondly, the state used the mounting popular pressure for changes on the land issue to institute the Fast Track Land Reform Programme which not only led to a radical redistribution of land but significantly influenced the forms of rule in the rural areas, including the violent repression of emerging opposition forces. The longterm economic and political effects of this radical reconfiguration of Zimbabwe’s political economy are still being felt in the country’s polity.146 Throughout the post-colonial period, the emergence of an autonomous black business elite was severely proscribed both by the control
Mnangagwa’s limited attempts at a national dialogue were further demonstrated in his Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No 2 Bill 2019, which will effectively restore the powers that Mugabe abused to decide on his successor, and various levels of judicial and state appointments.
144 Mkandawire, 2017, p. 185; see also Rodrik, 2006 145 Ranger, 2004 146 Raftopoulos, 2014
CASE STUDY: NAVIGATING TURBULENCE IN ZIMBABWE
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